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Re: The Corona Virus

Originally Posted by factotum

They haven't, and aren't likely to for a while. A vaccine is currently being tested by a Cambridge lab, and there are no doubt similar efforts going on around the world, but it'll be months before any such thing is ready for roll-out--you have to be sure that firstly, the vaccine actually works to prevent Covid-19, and secondly, that it doesn't cause worse issues down the line. That requires extensive testing.

Re: The Corona Virus

Originally Posted by factotum

There's actually an Indian pharmaceutical company which is already working on replicating the Cambridge vaccine on the assumption it'll turn out OK and to be in a position to have millions of them ready for September--presumably if the vaccine turns out to be a bust they'll just have to throw all that away and start again from scratch.

I don't know about that; my understanding is that many vaccines that don't work, or have unintended consequences, can be "fixed" with enough work. Not all, of course - sometimes you just go down a dead end. And sometimes it's more work to fix it than to just begin again. Either way, if you're set up to produce one vaccine, you're likely in a good play to begin working on a related vaccine.
Even if they have to scrap it altogether, I'd imagine a lot of the process is the same for any given vaccine.

That's all I can think of, at any rate.

Originally Posted by remetagross

All hail the mighty Strigon! One only has to ask, and one shall receive.

Re: The Corona Virus

Yes, at zeroth order. Slightly better would be to subtract a moving average, so even if there is a general downward trend as long as that trend is relatively steady you'll subtract it out.

That is, if on average stuff is going down at X per year over some time frame, you can subtract X from a smaller piece of that time frame to see how it compares to the overall trend?

Originally Posted by Grod_The_Giant

We should try to make that a thing; I think it might help civility. Hey, GitP, let's try to make this a thing: when you're arguing optimization strategies, RAW-logic, and similar such things that you'd never actually use in a game, tag your post [THEORETICAL] and/or use green text

Originally Posted by Lvl 2 Expert

So a ranger is like a Bachelor of Applied Druidology.

Originally Posted by Kid Jake

What's the word for 'fear of being eaten by a mounted bear in half-plate' again? Because that's the one I have.

Re: The Corona Virus

Originally Posted by Bartmanhomer

Great.

I was reading (somewhat late) the latest Private Eye today and in particular the MD special covid column.

In there, a table appeared indicating your chances of dying from covid if you don't already have it, broken down by age. Now, I do have some queries about how these figures is calculated: in particular how it factors in the effect of lockdown, and it excludes data from May, but I do trust Private Eye's journalistic integrity and I don't think it would present something like this that was deliberately misleading. MD has also taken a fairly balanced view on covid to date.

I'm not sure how old you are, BMH, but I'm guessing you're in one of those categories.

I'm also assuming you don't have an underlying health condition that makes you particularly vulnerable, like asthma. If you do, then ignore all of this. From what I understand, this makes no allowance for existing health conditions, so if you have something that gives you a vulnerability, that will push your percentage up above the average for the age bracket, but if you don't, your actual percentage will be lower.

And here is some data from NHS England on death rate for people who do have it.

0-19: Insufficient data
20-29: 0.03%
30-39: 0.08%
40-49: 0.15%

I have deliberately excluded the figures for the higher age brackets, because of the point I'm trying to make, but they are in the spoiler below.

Now, for reference, here's some data on other things that can happen to you in the UK the course of a year (all figures approximate):

Hit by lightning: 0.00008%
Homicide: 0.001%
Death in a road traffic accident: 0.003%
Death by accidental falling: 0.005%

From what I understand, the rates on these are generally higher in the USA. So if you are under the age of about 60, covid is really not that dangerous. There are other risks that we take for granted as part of our normal lives that are much more dangerous. For children, they are genuinely more likely to be hit by lightning than they are to die of covid.

My point is: try not to worry about it. You, personally, you'll be fine. There is no point getting stressed about it because that'll end up giving you more problems than the covid is likely to.

This doesn't mean you should stop taking precautions: just because you'll be fine doesn't mean you can't infect older people for whom it is more of a problem. But you should be concerned about not infecting others, not concerned about catching it yourself.

Re: The Corona Virus

Originally Posted by Aedilred

I was reading (somewhat late) the latest Private Eye today and in particular the MD special covid column.

In there, a table appeared indicating your chances of dying from covid if you don't already have it, broken down by age. Now, I do have some queries about how these figures is calculated: in particular how it factors in the effect of lockdown, and it excludes data from May, but I do trust Private Eye's journalistic integrity and I don't think it would present something like this that was deliberately misleading. MD has also taken a fairly balanced view on covid to date.

I'm not sure how old you are, BMH, but I'm guessing you're in one of those categories.

I'm also assuming you don't have an underlying health condition that makes you particularly vulnerable, like asthma. If you do, then ignore all of this. From what I understand, this makes no allowance for existing health conditions, so if you have something that gives you a vulnerability, that will push your percentage up above the average for the age bracket, but if you don't, your actual percentage will be lower.

And here is some data from NHS England on death rate for people who do have it.

0-19: Insufficient data
20-29: 0.03%
30-39: 0.08%
40-49: 0.15%

I have deliberately excluded the figures for the higher age brackets, because of the point I'm trying to make, but they are in the spoiler below.

Now, for reference, here's some data on other things that can happen to you in the UK the course of a year (all figures approximate):

Hit by lightning: 0.00008%
Homicide: 0.001%
Death in a road traffic accident: 0.003%
Death by accidental falling: 0.005%

From what I understand, the rates on these are generally higher in the USA. So if you are under the age of about 60, covid is really not that dangerous. There are other risks that we take for granted as part of our normal lives that are much more dangerous. For children, they are genuinely more likely to be hit by lightning than they are to die of covid.

My point is: try not to worry about it. You, personally, you'll be fine. There is no point getting stressed about it because that'll end up giving you more problems than the covid is likely to.

This doesn't mean you should stop taking precautions: just because you'll be fine doesn't mean you can't infect older people for whom it is more of a problem. But you should be concerned about not infecting others, not concerned about catching it yourself.

Re: The Corona Virus

Originally Posted by Aedilred

I was reading (somewhat late) the latest Private Eye today and in particular the MD special covid column.

In there, a table appeared indicating your chances of dying from covid if you don't already have it, broken down by age. Now, I do have some queries about how these figures is calculated: in particular how it factors in the effect of lockdown, and it excludes data from May, but I do trust Private Eye's journalistic integrity and I don't think it would present something like this that was deliberately misleading. MD has also taken a fairly balanced view on covid to date.

I'm not sure how old you are, BMH, but I'm guessing you're in one of those categories.

I'm also assuming you don't have an underlying health condition that makes you particularly vulnerable, like asthma. If you do, then ignore all of this. From what I understand, this makes no allowance for existing health conditions, so if you have something that gives you a vulnerability, that will push your percentage up above the average for the age bracket, but if you don't, your actual percentage will be lower.

And here is some data from NHS England on death rate for people who do have it.

0-19: Insufficient data
20-29: 0.03%
30-39: 0.08%
40-49: 0.15%

I have deliberately excluded the figures for the higher age brackets, because of the point I'm trying to make, but they are in the spoiler below.

Now, for reference, here's some data on other things that can happen to you in the UK the course of a year (all figures approximate):

Hit by lightning: 0.00008%
Homicide: 0.001%
Death in a road traffic accident: 0.003%
Death by accidental falling: 0.005%

From what I understand, the rates on these are generally higher in the USA. So if you are under the age of about 60, covid is really not that dangerous. There are other risks that we take for granted as part of our normal lives that are much more dangerous. For children, they are genuinely more likely to be hit by lightning than they are to die of covid.

My point is: try not to worry about it. You, personally, you'll be fine. There is no point getting stressed about it because that'll end up giving you more problems than the covid is likely to.

This doesn't mean you should stop taking precautions: just because you'll be fine doesn't mean you can't infect older people for whom it is more of a problem. But you should be concerned about not infecting others, not concerned about catching it yourself.

And death rates of those with the virus:
50-59: 0.6%
60-69: 2.2%
70-79: 5.1%
80+: 9.3%

This is why the mortality rate looks so high: because it's much more dangerous for older people.

The 'odds that you'll catch it and it'll be fatal' is a pretty awful statistic. Catching Covid-19 isn't random. Like if my roommate catches Covid-19, then my odds of catching it as well are really high. But if I work from home and have food delivered to my door, my odds of catching Covid-19 is basically 0. How you live your life and what you are exposed to is what determines if you'll catch it or not. Not 'you had a x% chance of catching it, so I guess you just got unlucky.'

Re: The Corona Virus

Originally Posted by Forum Explorer

The 'odds that you'll catch it and it'll be fatal' is a pretty awful statistic. Catching Covid-19 isn't random. Like if my roommate catches Covid-19, then my odds of catching it as well are really high. But if I work from home and have food delivered to my door, my odds of catching Covid-19 is basically 0. How you live your life and what you are exposed to is what determines if you'll catch it or not. Not 'you had a x% chance of catching it, so I guess you just got unlucky.'

Well almost nothing in life is truly random. But over a large enough data set you can extrapolate trends. Yes, if you go round sucking doorknobs you are more likely to catch it. But for someone in BMH's age profile, with a 99.9% survival rate, he's still likely enough to be fine that I'm confident in telling him he has nothing to worry about.

And that's before you factor in the chance that he won't get it. Even if he's reckless and gives himself an 80% chance of contraction, that's still low enough to take his overall prospect of surviving this to over 99.999%.

Re: The Corona Virus

Originally Posted by Aedilred

Well almost nothing in life is truly random. But over a large enough data set you can extrapolate trends. Yes, if you go round sucking doorknobs you are more likely to catch it. But for someone in BMH's age profile, with a 99.9% survival rate, he's still likely enough to be fine that I'm confident in telling him he has nothing to worry about.

And that's before you factor in the chance that he won't get it. Even if he's reckless and gives himself an 80% chance of contraction, that's still low enough to take his overall prospect of surviving this to over 99.999%.

Trends only work if proper knowledge and circumstances are applied. For example, if I go out into thunderstorms and wave a golf club in the air my odds of being struck by lightning are a lot higher than 0.00008%. The second half, the survival per age group, is actually useful for BMH. The former is harmful without context. If you just take it at its word, you're more likely to engage in reckless behaviors, catch, and then spread, Covid-19.

Besides, if BMH is like me, he isn't worried about himself. Like you said, we're in the age group where we would almost certainly survive. I'm (and maybe he) worried about our parents and older relatives. I'm not worried about surviving Corvid-19, I'm worried about spreading it.

Re: The Corona Virus

Originally Posted by NotASpiderSwarm

No, if you're in an area with minimal COVID exposure, the goal is to keep that exposure minimal. If you're some isolated town in rural TX or Kansas, then very strict procedures are the way to keep your death count at 0. The fact that it hasn't hit you yet is an opportunity to keep it out, not an excuse to ignore the possibility.

Zero deaths is always the goal, but people have other needs as well. The lower the local risk, the easier it is to prioritize other needs higher, since your odds of being infected is lower. The same is true for say, prioritizing supplies. Safeguards are best used in areas of high exposure risk. You can say that we ought to put them everyone, and perhaps that would be nice, but resources are always finite.

Originally Posted by Lvl 2 Expert

So they haven't actually made a vaccine, they've made a thing that could turn out to be a vaccine, but for now they're not actually sure what it is yet.

Pretty much, that's how these things go. You've got to prove efficacy, safety, etc. That naturally takes time. Now, something like this will no doubt be rushed as much as it can be, but you can only speed some aspects up so much. We can certainly hope, but I wouldn't place any large bets on a vaccine being perfected extremely soon. Many setbacks could happen. We're likely to figure it out eventually, though, at least to the level of flu vaccines.

Originally Posted by Liquor Box

In terms of decision making, my view is that allowing governments to make the decision is better than spreading the decision across all persons. That is because this is a complicated question of balancing competing concerns and factors. When decision making is by a small group of intelligent people it is reasonable to expect that they will be across all relevant information, will understand it, and make a rational decision on that basis. Where it is individuals, I think it is reasonable to expect that many (perhaps most) people wont be across all information (or even have access to it), understand all implications, and therefore be able to make a rational decision. That is not to say that the smaller group will always make the better decision, only that they wioll have the better chance of making a good decision.

This is pretty much the case for all things at all times, since most people are not experts on most topics. They are, however, fairly well educated on themselves and their own circumstances. This is why we don't have small groups make all decisions for all of humanity on all topics. See also, "wisdom of the crowds". Knowledge bubbles up even in mostly uninformed populations. As a hard example, polling the crowd is superior in predictive power to phoning an expert on the show "Who Wants to be a Millionare."

Even if we ignored the accuracy issue, uninformed people can and do still ignore experts and make their own actions regardless of advice. So, you sort of have to go with the general population deciding for themselves as a practical matter. Yeah, it's harder to educate everyone rather than a few, but it's necessary.

As for the risk, sure, there is, at present, fairly low risk of death directly due to covid if you are reasonably young and in decent health. That risk can change if the disease becomes more common, or mutates to become more deadly. It's certainly useful to keep those numbers in mind, and not panic overly, though. No doubt one would look at that risk of a car accident, and not feel a need to go out and drive recklessly. Disease is much the same. If you act prudently, your personal risk can be below average. Not zero, but enough that it's manageable for day to day life. If you can drive safely, you're certainly capable of acting safely with regards to infection.

Back from a lengthy vacation from Giantitp. I've been dabbling with 3d printer technology and game design, PM if you're curious.

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimization."

Re: The Corona Virus

It's also fairly critical to note that we are not looking at an on/off switch, here. The two states aren't "you catch it but you live" and "you catch it and you die".

There's also "you catch it and it develops into pneumonia, leading to a few weeks in the hospital followed by months of physical recovery as you slowly work your way back to health on a timeline we don't know yet because there are people still in the recovery process", and "you catch it and then have permanent lung damage and asthma", and "you take damage to your eyesight", "you take damage to your liver", "you have an increased risk of heart failure", and a lot of other fun treats we're still figuring out the extent of.

That's something to keep in mind when considering how dangerous the disease is; it has a lot more long-term health effects than many.

If you like my ideas, why not take a peek at my Patreon? New RPGs and campaigns on a constant drip!

Re: The Corona Virus

Originally Posted by Friv

It's also fairly critical to note that we are not looking at an on/off switch, here. The two states aren't "you catch it but you live" and "you catch it and you die".

There's also "you catch it and it develops into pneumonia, leading to a few weeks in the hospital followed by months of physical recovery as you slowly work your way back to health on a timeline we don't know yet because there are people still in the recovery process", and "you catch it and then have permanent lung damage and asthma", and "you take damage to your eyesight", "you take damage to your liver", "you have an increased risk of heart failure", and a lot of other fun treats we're still figuring out the extent of.

That's something to keep in mind when considering how dangerous the disease is; it has a lot more long-term health effects than many.

I do know all of this. I was merely concerned because some of BMH's comments in this thread have suggested he's quite frightened about catching this, and I was trying to reassure him that, while there is still good reason to be careful, there's no real reason to be scared. At least, not for his own sake.

Re: The Corona Virus

Originally Posted by Aedilred

I do know all of this. I was merely concerned because some of BMH's comments in this thread have suggested he's quite frightened about catching this, and I was trying to reassure him that, while there is still good reason to be careful, there's no real reason to be scared. At least, not for his own sake.

I apologize.

I've gotten too used to people who are trying to downplay the virus to explain why we don't need to take steps against it, and it's given me a knee-jerk reaction. I should have read more carefully.

If you like my ideas, why not take a peek at my Patreon? New RPGs and campaigns on a constant drip!

Re: The Corona Virus

I'm eager to hear some thoughts on the hypothesis from people who have some expertise, if any are here and are willing to comment. The rest of us are of course welcome to respond to the article as well.

Last edited by Caledonian; 2020-06-02 at 06:56 PM.

Alignments are objective. Right and wrong are not.Good: Will act to prevent harm to others even at personal cost.Evil: Will seek personal benefit even if it causes harm to others.Law: General, universal, and consistent trump specific, local, and inconsistent.Chaos: Specific, local, and inconsistent trump general, universal, and consistent.

Re: The Corona Virus

Originally Posted by Aedilred

I do know all of this. I was merely concerned because some of BMH's comments in this thread have suggested he's quite frightened about catching this, and I was trying to reassure him that, while there is still good reason to be careful, there's no real reason to be scared. At least, not for his own sake.

Re: The Corona Virus

The research I’ve read suggests it affects the T cells - it actually decreases their effectiveness which then leads to the pneumonia etc
This could also explain why kids are less affected - their lymph systems are more effective

'Utúlie'n aurë! Aiya Eldalië ar Atanatári, utúlie'n aurë! “The day has come! Behold, people of the Eldar and Fathers of Men, the day has come!" And all those who heard his great voice echo in the hills answered, crying:'Auta i lómë!" The night is passing!"

Re: The Corona Virus

It affects lots of cells. It targets a very common receptor, so it gets taken up into a lot of different cells, and it disrupts the work of all those different cells.

I'm wondering what the corona statistics in the US are going to look like a few weeks from now, given the current [no politics, so let's leave it at the neutral fact that a lot of people are going outside together, get close to each other and over hours and days have close contact with lots of different people, and singing/chanting/yelling is a risk factor too]. As pressing as other issues can be, life doesn't stop because of one pandemic, it sure could be a big setback with regards to corona.

Re: The Corona Virus

Originally Posted by Lvl 2 Expert

It affects lots of cells. It targets a very common receptor, so it gets taken up into a lot of different cells, and it disrupts the work of all those different cells.

I'm wondering what the corona statistics in the US are going to look like a few weeks from now, given the current [no politics, so let's leave it at the neutral fact that a lot of people are going outside together, get close to each other and over hours and days have close contact with lots of different people, and singing/chanting/yelling is a risk factor too]. As pressing as other issues can be, life doesn't stop because of one pandemic, it sure could be a big setback with regards to corona.

My money is on "no statistical change".

Originally Posted by Wardog

Rockphed said it well.

Originally Posted by Yuki Akuma

We should change the collective noun for crocodiles to "an abundance of crocodiles".

Re: The Corona Virus

Originally Posted by Friv

It's also fairly critical to note that we are not looking at an on/off switch, here. The two states aren't "you catch it but you live" and "you catch it and you die".

There's also "you catch it and it develops into pneumonia, leading to a few weeks in the hospital followed by months of physical recovery as you slowly work your way back to health on a timeline we don't know yet because there are people still in the recovery process", and "you catch it and then have permanent lung damage and asthma", and "you take damage to your eyesight", "you take damage to your liver", "you have an increased risk of heart failure", and a lot of other fun treats we're still figuring out the extent of.

That's something to keep in mind when considering how dangerous the disease is; it has a lot more long-term health effects than many.

While I recognize that consequences other than death exist, I think we're seeing some lag in reporting on recoveries. Tests popping positive will be reported, but many people will likely not get immediately retested once recovered. Everyone I know who has gotten it has fallen into one of the first two categories(all but one recovered, thankfully).

If you look at the raw numbers, you see lots of still open cases, but one would generally expect them to resolve in a few weeks, and thus we should be seeing somewhat more resolutions than we have thus far. I expect this'll eventually get cleared up.

Barring a resurgence, of course, which is certainly possible. I am hoping that we've gotten past enough of it that the recent US gatherings will not cause a secondary spread, but I have heard some concern over it. I guess if you're going out to be in a massive crowd of people, take hand sanitizer and what not with you and share it out.

Edit: It also occurs to me that the use of tear gas may be applicable to Covid concerns. By its nature, it makes people tear up, cough, sneeze and generally expectorate excessively. This would seem to be the sort of stuff you'd want to avoid if you wish to reduce transmission.

Last edited by Tyndmyr; 2020-06-03 at 08:00 PM.

Back from a lengthy vacation from Giantitp. I've been dabbling with 3d printer technology and game design, PM if you're curious.

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimization."

Re: The Corona Virus

That's... disingenuous. The only way they could have derived that figure is by looking at the numbers of people who have died so far. So of the 17,253,000 people aged 25-44 (2011 census figure), we can deduce that approximately 345 have died.

By that logic: if you haven't died yet, you're safe. I don't think that's correct. Last I heard, the disease was still pretty rife in the UK.

This also assumes that "underlying health conditions" are statistically negligible. That feels to me like an assumption that's being asked to do some awfully heavy lifting here, very likely somewhat beyond its tested capacity.

Originally Posted by Aedilred

And here is some data from NHS England on death rate for people who do have it.

0-19: Insufficient data
20-29: 0.03%
30-39: 0.08%
40-49: 0.15%

That's more meaningful. We know that if there is no serious, concerted effort to prevent its spread, a virus of this type will typically eventually infect something between 40% and 70% of the population. (It may in practice be significantly higher or lower, all we have to go on is the lifecycle of other viruses that we think are epidemologically comparable, but of course we may be quite wrong about that too.) So if we take "50%" as a nice, neutral estimate, that translates to about 13,000 of those 25-44 year olds who would eventually die from it, unless strong action is taken to prevent that outcome.

Of course, we haven't touched on the incidence of ongoing (long-term) health effects following recovery from covid-19. I've seen some alarming reports about those, but I have no idea whether they affect 0.1% or 10% of people, and I'm guessing you don't either.

Originally Posted by Aedilred

This doesn't mean you should stop taking precautions: just because you'll be fine doesn't mean you can't infect older people for whom it is more of a problem. But you should be concerned about not infecting others, not concerned about catching it yourself.

It's not just the "older people", though. If you refuse to take precautions, you are participating in spreading the disease freely throughout the community. You are doing your bit to move the outcome on that 25-44 age range from "345" in the direction of "13,000". So yeah, you probably won't die of it, and there's a good chance that your whole extended family will escape with nothing worse than maybe Aunt Esme will have slightly reduced lung capacity, not even enough to worry about unless she wants to take up scuba diving. But you're still participating in a very gruesome social experiment, and other families won't be so lucky.

There's a scene in The Third Man, where the villain takes our protagonist up on a Ferris wheel and points to the crowds of people - complete strangers, foreigners to both of them - milling about below:

Originally Posted by Graham Greene, The Third Man

Victims? Don't be melodramatic. [gestures to people far below] Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man.

For 20 years, I've had that scene embedded in my memory as a chilling meditation on the nature of evil. Now it suddenly seems much less abstract.

"None of us likes to be hated, none of us likes to be shunned. A natural result of these conditions is, that we consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor’s pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound." - Mark Twain

Re: The Corona Virus

Originally Posted by veti

That's... disingenuous. The only way they could have derived that figure is by looking at the numbers of people who have died so far. So of the 17,253,000 people aged 25-44 (2011 census figure), we can deduce that approximately 345 have died.

I presume that the means of calculation was (% chance of catching it)*(death rate by age band in confirmed cases)

The former of those is, of course, subject to change and is impossible to accurately determine, hence why the data is of negligible statistical value without further information. How is that rate calculated and under what circumstances? Is that based on the confirmed or predicted infection rate? Does that assume that lockdown is in place or that it's lifted? And so on. It's probably just a ballpark figure based on best guess.

But it's not really meant to be crunched in detail: it's just a quick reality check of sorts to try to reduce unnecessary worry and stress.

This also assumes that "underlying health conditions" are statistically negligible. That feels to me like an assumption that's being asked to do some awfully heavy lifting here, very likely somewhat beyond its tested capacity.

"Underlying health conditions" bugs me because it's impossibly vague. Everyone has underlying health conditions. I suffer from mild hayfever and chronic depression. Those are underlying health conditions. Do they make me more vulnerable to the virus? No. On the other hand, my mum has bronchitis and is taking medication for another condition that does make her vulnerable.

For the sake of argument, I'm treating it as being "enough to make you sufficiently vulnerable that you are (or would be were you in the UK) considered clinically vulnerable and officially advised to stay at home before lockdown began universally". I'm not sure how many such people there are and data are hard to come by: even then, that list includes all over-70s automatically so the number may look a lot higher than it is.